Jagged Edges of Time
by Aimlessly Unknown
Summary: Martha gets a visitor from the future. TenRose.


_Summary_: Martha gets a visitor from the future.

**IMPORTANT: THIS IS NOT ROSE. Rose does not have brown hair or a scar or a Scottish accent. This is an OC I created. Thanks! Enjoy. :)**

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><p>Martha Jones, wrapped in the covers of her bed and her daydreams, screams. It isn't in pain, in agony burning her bones from the inside out (<em>thedoctorisafire<em> she will whisper, will warn, and will not miss him any less for it), it is in shock.

Because, right there in the TARDIS, is a girl; which should be impossible, no one can just _appear_ in the TARDIS – it's impossible! But, then again, this is the Doctor – impossible is sort of his thing. But this girl has crossed something even the Doctor doesn't think could happen. This girl, with her brown eyes and hair and that odd shaped scar on her neck, has just blown everything wide open and pulled Martha in.

"You are his companion currently, righ'?" She asks, her voice thick and Scottish underneath all of the urgency and suffering. Martha doesn't respond, chooses instead to wait for the Doctor to come running in and help her. Explain, save, and grin – like he always does.

"He isn't runnin' here anytime soon," The girl warns lowly and takes a single step forward, "now, you are his companion currently, am I righ'?"

"Y-Yes." She whispers and prays that the girl won't hurt her. Won't rip her away into her other world or something. But why isn't the Doctor coming, why is he ignoring her screams? She's like to ask, to know, but the girl doesn't pause for a breath.

"Then listen up" It sounds serious, like a soon to be warning, but it also sounds more like 'oop' than up and that makes Martha giggle, "Oh shut it – and listen. Because I only have a short time to convey this thought to you, and it's pre'y big 'un." Then her voice changes to an English one, a high and lofty one with all the pain of before, and Martha blinks before the TARDIS hums and she kind of understands.

The TARDIS changed her voice – changed this girl – so Martha would take it seriously. And that hurts just a little bit that even the ship thinks she's too flighty.

(_the ship rattles with laughter because this girl is so lost and confused and it's rather sad in the face of the doctors future companion – one of the only who was smart and knew something of physics and was eager to learn, even if she was a bit annoying about it_)

"He needs to find Rose and I know how – well he figures it out, but only I can do _this_ part." And somehow it all comes back to _her_, back to the blonde and the brown eyes and the lost love and _notgoodenough_. And that is what makes the next words hurt so very much, the words with the girl that shakes like she feels something cold.

"He is so alone." The girl whispers, eyes shut and hands pressed behind her back – clasping a necklace, her voice slow and sad, almost pitying, "So tell him, Martha Jones, tell him to _reach the wolf inside_, he should figure it out on his own and save her."

(_hewillloseyou_ the ship warns, and the girl smiles, _it's enough_ she whispers back as she reaches to press the transport)

"He _isn't_ alone! He has me!" Martha rails because she _is_ good enough, dammit – she is a doctor and good enough to have others let her heal them so _why not him_?

(_the ship rattles again, but not with laughter, with anger, because this girl isn't listening, isn't remembering the words that will _save_ just the ones that _hurt.)

"It's not enough. Not for him." The girl exasperates, removing her finger from the button.

That hurts Martha. Just _hurts_. Nothing agonizing, nothing brazing and burning and painful – it just _hurts_; but it's worse somehow – worse and enough, enough to fill her eyes with tears and let them fall.

"I can be _enough_, I _can_!" She promises, she swears, she can be enough for him. Enough for him to want and love and (_letgoofrose_) have.

"No. You can't. You can't be what she was. What she is. She is everything to him. All that he will ever want and need is in her, living and writhing in agony because she is so very far away." There is pain and acceptance in the girl's voice and maybe she was in love with the Doctor too. Maybe she needs him and loves him and can't have him either.

(or, a voice in Martha's head croons, she is conveying his pain, his loss, his agony at the loss of Rose – maybe this girl isn't good enough either but maybe she doesn't want to be)

Martha doesn't consider that it hurts to stay in one timeline from the other.

"Martha Jones, you can't win this – can't win him from her." The girl warns, dares her to try to heal the Doctor. And, in her voice, there is a gloat that knows that Martha can't and never will be able to (the fact that this girl is here and you are not is proof enough, that voice whispers again).

"You can have this though, you can have his company. You're alive and here with him and that's the one victory you can have over her. And I hope that's enough for you." She says, pitying, just pitying the poor black-girl that wants so much and can never have it. Both of the choice of the universe and the fickleness of her heart (_she got married, she's fine_ the doctor is truly happy for martha, she thinks when the doctor mentions her in passing).

The time-traveler opens her mouth, "Bu—!"

"_Stop it_!" Martha cries out, because the girl is going to speak again it's going to hurt terribly. Hurt like jagged edges of glass and misery against the flesh of a loving soul in a failing body (_dyingandwitheringaway_).

"But don't forget this in your glory, Martha Jones; he misses her, misses her terribly, she haunts him and he lets her because he loves her. He wants her. He sees her. In everything. In you." The time-girl presses on, trying to make Martha understand. Understand what she is trying so hard to convey.

Martha can't breathe, can't move, because she wants to argue – wants to open her mouth and scream at her to _leavepleasegetout_ but it's true and she can't and, dear sweet Jesus, it burns.

" You understand, don't you? You do but you don't want to. You want to hide away in the TARDIS and pretend that you don't see him falter around that _one _hallway, choking up at the sight of those flowers in the kitchen that you're sure the TARDIS put there just to remind him. You pretend that the hallway is just a hallway and not the hallway where _she_ slept – where _her_ room is. You wish that those flowers just make his Time Lord Allergies act up." Her eyes are wide and soft and Martha understands; understands it all and she's right and it's never hurt so much until someone else saw it.

"You notice that he doesn't quite want to hold your hand, he doesn't lace his fingers in yours and pull you along when he doesn't have to. He avoids hugging you for very long. He doesn't quite look at you. And you know why. Because he did those things with _her_. And he can't share them with you. Because you aren't her. And that hurts a little bit too, doesn't it?"

(itdoesitdoesitdoes)

"And the worst of it all is that you feel the TARDIS mourn too. That even this ship," She places a hand reverently on the wood and the ship ripples under her skin, recognizing the future companion; "is crying."

She turns those big eyes to Martha and there's something powerful in them, " You hear the songs. The shaking and shivering and the songs that sound like an angel's chorus. And they don't rock you to sleep like you know they do to him and _her_. They keep you awake with the sadness, with the eternity in them that you'll never touch. And you hear the weeping for the companions he's lost. For Ace and Peri and Romona and Susan and John and Jack and all the others that you don't know." Martha doesn't know them, never was told about them, but this girl was and _how many other things has the Doctor not told her_?

"But you hear _her_ song. At the forefront, like the sands of time running over and over and over and suddenly ending without warning, because that was what happened to her."

"Ending before it should have, without preamble. Gone, in a flash. A flame snuffed out. A cloud disintegrating in the air." She smiles somberly, "A rose – wilted before bloom."

"Remember Martha – _Reach the wolf inside_, tell him and we'll see if he gets it in time."

Suddenly the girl is gone. Faded and ripped away.

(A girl that's giving the Doctor what he needs at the cost of her own life. The Doctor, running away from the memories, ends up saving the life of a girl with brown eyes and hair, and taking her with him. And if he had Rose…if he had her he wouldn't run. He wouldn't save that girl. She would die and no one would know. No one would care.)

Martha decides something. This girl, this girl with too much words and too much pain could be an alien, trying to kill the Doctor by forcing him to try something he shouldn't. It makes sense. It all makes sense to Martha, she should protect the Doctor and she knows how.

She's not telling the Doctor, just yet. She'll wait until she's had her adventure – her share of the Doctor – and then, when she's ready to walk away, she'll tell him and let him have his manic search that might end up killing him. She'll let him try when she doesn't want to hurt anymore and leaves.

(selfishselfishyou_stupidape_, the voice in her head sounds northern now – much different than her own)

But until then she'll go find him and beg him to take her to that place where there are pink elephants.

And where there is no such thing as Rose, no mourning ship, no lost Doctor, just adventure and his hand in hers (_just contact, no pressure, no lacing, no love, just contact and she'd like to think it's enough_).

For a little while, at least.

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><p>Aimlessly Unknown.<p> 


End file.
